School Sparks Fury With Converting To Islam Homework Assignment

A British school causes outrage with its unconventional new method to judge children’s knowledge about different religions, including Islam.

A homework assignment given to school children on the island of Guernsey asks eighth-graders to write a letter to their parents informing them of their intent to become a Muslim.

The controversial assignment created by religious education teacher Amber Stables at Les Beaucamp High School asked 12- and 13-year-old kids to “Include: How you’re feeling, how becoming a Muslim has changed your life, how much you love your family and hope they can accept your choice.”

The text also added a stipulation saying the kids were not actually converting to Islam and it was purely to test their knowledge about different religion.

The homework that was created to understand how much a student objectively perceives other religions resulted in a not-unexpected backlash.

Not many parents found this type of homework appropriate for kids — both because many families have strong religious beliefs of their own and those who deem it “dangerous” especially at a time when youngsters across the world are threatened by radicalization.

Others were not so concerned. A commenter, Vivica, wrote: "Does this really matter? It's a thought experiment... If you're worried about your kid being influenced by it, maybe you just need to do a better job as a parent!"

Although people have diverging views on the subject, it was still a very unwise decision of the school to give such an fraught assignment to its students, at a critical time when Islam is only being portrayed as a violent, blood-thirsty religion.